Shape memory materials feature an ability to transform shape from a temporary, frozen, shape to a permanent shape when triggered by an environmental stimulus, such as heat, light, or vapor. Used creatively, these phenomena can be exploited for a wide range of applications. While both shape memory alloys (SMAs) and shape memory polymers (SMPs) show similar thermo-stimulated shape memory properties, their mechanisms of action are quite distinct. Advantages of SMAs include rapid strain recovery (within 1 second), the potential training for two-way reversible memory, and an apparent superelasticity due within the austentite phase at low temperature. In contrast, polymers intrinsically exhibit shape memory effects derived from their highly coiled constituent chains that are collectively extensible via mechanical work and this energy may be stored indefinitely, known as “shape fixing,” by cooling below Tg or Tm. The polymeric samples can later perform mechanical work and return to a stress-free state when heated above the critical temperature, mobilizing the frozen chains to regain the entropy of their coiled state. In comparison to SMAs, thermally stimulated SMPs have the advantages of: (i) large recoverable deformations in excess of several hundred percent strain; (ii) facile tuning of transition temperatures through variation of the polymer chemistry; and (iii) processing ease at low cost.
Thermally stimulated SMPs with different thermomechanical properties to function in various applications, for example as medical devices and mechanical actuators have previously been synthesized and characterized by the instant inventors. The materials span a range of room temperature moduli, from rigid glassy materials having storage moduli of several GPa to compliant rubbers with moduli as low as tens of MPa. Moreover, the retracting (rubbery) moduli have been adjusted over the range 0.5<E<10 MPa, as prescribed by the end application. One such example is chemically crosslinked polycyclooctene (PCO), a stiff semicrystalline rubber that is elastically deformed above Tm to a temporary shape that is fixed by crystallization. Fast and complete recovery of gross deformations is achieved by immersion in hot water. These SMPs have been described in Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/419,506 filed Oct. 18, 2002 entitled Chemically Crosslinked Polycyclooctene, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference. In Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/377,544 filed May 2, 2002 entitled Castable Shape Memory Polymers, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference, stiffer SMPs offering tunable critical temperatures and rubber modulus using a thermosetting random copolymer made of two vinyl monomers that yield controlled Tg and casting-type processing are described. Such copolymers were crosslinked with a difunctional vinyl monomer (crosslinker), the concentration of crosslinker controlling the rubber modulus and thus the work potential during recovery. Besides their shape memory effects, these materials are also castable allowing for processing more complex shapes. In addition, they are optically transparent making them useful for additional applications.
The use of chemical crosslinking in both of these cases limits the types of processing possible and forever sets the equilibrium shape at the point of network formation. Therefore, miscible blends of a semicrystalline polymer with amorphous polymers have also been intensively investigated due to their attractive crystalline properties and mechanical properties. For those blends that are miscible at the molecular level, a single glass transition results, without broadening, an aspect important to shape memory. Additionally, in such miscible blends the equilibrium crystallinity (which controls the plateau modulus between Tg and Tm where shape fixing is performed) also changes dramatically and systematically with the blend compositions. It provides a simple route to alternative shape memory plastics; i.e. SMPs with relatively high modulus in the fixed state at room temperature, having a tunable and sharp transition, and the permanent shape can be remolded repeatedly above certain melting temperatures. These SMP blends have been described in Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/466,401 filed Apr. 29, 2003 entitled Blends of Amorphous and Semicrystalline Polymers with Shape Memory Properties, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Microphase-separated semicrystalline thermoplastic polymers with two sharp melting transitions Tm2>Tm1>room temperature, where the difference of the two melting points is at least 20° C., are also good candidates for shape memory offering the advantage of melt processing above Tm2, and repeated resetting of the equilibrium shape by relaxing stress in the fluid state. Representative past examples of such polymers in this class of SMP are conventional polyurethanes whose soft domains are glassy or semicrystalline with low melting point (but higher than Tcrit) and whose hard domains feature a higher melting point only exceeded during processing.